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  <div class="section" id="module-uu">
<h1>19.16. <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">uu</span></tt> &#8212; Encode and decode uuencode files<a class="headerlink" href="#module-uu" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1>
<p>This module encodes and decodes files in uuencode format, allowing arbitrary
binary data to be transferred over ASCII-only connections. Wherever a file
argument is expected, the methods accept a file-like object.  For backwards
compatibility, a string containing a pathname is also accepted, and the
corresponding file will be opened for reading and writing; the pathname <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'-'</span></tt>
is understood to mean the standard input or output.  However, this interface is
deprecated; it&#8217;s better for the caller to open the file itself, and be sure
that, when required, the mode is <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'rb'</span></tt> or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'wb'</span></tt> on Windows.</p>
<p id="index-707">This code was contributed by Lance Ellinghouse, and modified by Jack Jansen.</p>
<p>The <tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">uu</span></tt> module defines the following functions:</p>
<dl class="function">
<dt id="uu.encode">
<tt class="descclassname">uu.</tt><tt class="descname">encode</tt><big>(</big><em>in_file</em>, <em>out_file</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>name</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>mode</em><span class="optional">]</span><span class="optional">]</span><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#uu.encode" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Uuencode file <em>in_file</em> into file <em>out_file</em>.  The uuencoded file will have the
header specifying <em>name</em> and <em>mode</em> as the defaults for the results of decoding
the file. The default defaults are taken from <em>in_file</em>, or <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">'-'</span></tt> and <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">0666</span></tt>
respectively.</dd></dl>

<dl class="function">
<dt id="uu.decode">
<tt class="descclassname">uu.</tt><tt class="descname">decode</tt><big>(</big><em>in_file</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>out_file</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>mode</em><span class="optional">[</span>, <em>quiet</em><span class="optional">]</span><span class="optional">]</span><span class="optional">]</span><big>)</big><a class="headerlink" href="#uu.decode" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd><p>This call decodes uuencoded file <em>in_file</em> placing the result on file
<em>out_file</em>. If <em>out_file</em> is a pathname, <em>mode</em> is used to set the permission
bits if the file must be created. Defaults for <em>out_file</em> and <em>mode</em> are taken
from the uuencode header.  However, if the file specified in the header already
exists, a <a title="uu.Error" class="reference internal" href="#uu.Error"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">uu.Error</span></tt></a> is raised.</p>
<p><a title="uu.decode" class="reference internal" href="#uu.decode"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">decode()</span></tt></a> may print a warning to standard error if the input was produced
by an incorrect uuencoder and Python could recover from that error.  Setting
<em>quiet</em> to a true value silences this warning.</p>
</dd></dl>

<dl class="exception">
<dt id="uu.Error">
<em class="property">
exception </em><tt class="descclassname">uu.</tt><tt class="descname">Error</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#uu.Error" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt>
<dd>Subclass of <a title="exceptions.Exception" class="reference external" href="exceptions.html#exceptions.Exception"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">Exception</span></tt></a>, this can be raised by <a title="uu.decode" class="reference internal" href="#uu.decode"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">uu.decode()</span></tt></a> under
various situations, such as described above, but also including a badly
formatted header, or truncated input file.</dd></dl>

<div class="admonition-see-also admonition seealso">
<p class="first admonition-title">See also</p>
<dl class="last docutils">
<dt>Module <a title="Tools for converting between binary and various ASCII-encoded binary representations." class="reference external" href="binascii.html#module-binascii"><tt class="xref docutils literal"><span class="pre">binascii</span></tt></a></dt>
<dd>Support module containing ASCII-to-binary and binary-to-ASCII conversions.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
</div>


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